


Money For Nothing

by shibboleth



Category: Iron Man (Movieverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 17:45:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shibboleth/pseuds/shibboleth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>now that ain't workin' / that's the way you do it<br/>let me tell ya / them guys ain't dumb</p>
            </blockquote>





	Money For Nothing

Tony fired about half of everyone on his first day as CEO. Not everyone that worked for Stark Industries—that’d require speaking to about ten thousand people and it’d probably involve a lot of phone calls and fax messages and that didn’t seem like the best way to go about it. The nicest way. Not that Tony would know, he’d never been fired and it probably wasn’t ever going to happen to him, but he figured that if it was going to happen there probably wasn’t a nice way to do it but he’d rather have someone tell him to his face.

Anyway, he fired half of the people that worked for the corporate office, and that was pretty much everyone he met on that first day.

And now he was  _tired_.

Tony sank into his chair. The big leather chair, the CEO’s chair. His father’s chair. Not technically his father’s chair—well, probably, odds were they’d bought a new chair by now—but this is where he’d sat and made decisions all day just like Tony had done today, except he probably didn’t end it by dropping his forehead onto the mahogany desk and groaning, which is what Tony was doing now.

He didn’t even have a hangover. Last night he’d been so nervous about today that he hadn’t been able to keep a drink down, and that was absolutely not fair, because yesterday he’d turned twenty-one. “Man,” he said.

“How’d it go?”

Tony jerked straight up in his seat—and then he realized that it was only Obi, and relaxed. “I did what you said,” he told him, watching the older guy shut the door behind him and start leisurely pacing around the office. “But,” he started, “are you sure we had to—”

“Tony,” Obi said. He walked toward the desk, and put both his hands down flat on the surface. “Now they  _know_  who’s in charge. Trust me, kid, we had to do it this way.”

Tony frowned. 

“And you did good.” 

“Yeah,” Tony said, muttering. “Anyone could’ve done all that.”

“But they didn’t, you did. Listen.” Obi leaned closer, and he lowered his voice, like he was about to give up a secret that was at least a three on the interesting scale. “You think these people would’ve respected you, at your age? They know you’re smart already, Tony, but now they know you’re in charge.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You deserve a break, kid.” Obi grinned. “How about you have your first legal martini on me?”

Tony’s stomach wasn’t feeling much better than it had last night, so for the first time in life he hesitates before accepting an offer of free booze.

“And you can take tomorrow off.”

Tony looked up. “Really?”

Obi grinned wider. “Don’t you worry, kid,” he said. “I’ll cover for you.”


End file.
